[Skin concerns] PSA: You are probably using hyaluronic acid wrong!
Moisture is the essence of wetness. And wetness is the essence of beauty.
~Derek Zoolander
Used to use HA as a step in my skincare routine, but discontinued it due to not seeing it do much. And while moisturizers would make my skin feel hydrated, looking in the mirror my skin still looked aged and dehydrated. I'm not sure how to explain exactly what that means, but I knew how I wanted my skin to look and it wasn't happening: no glow, no luminosity, no natural highlights, no suppleness. One day I decided to play with hyaluronic acid. This is it, y'all.
Here's what I do
After washing with a very gentle cleanser that doesn't dry my skin, I splash a few times with water to rinse the cleanser. I quickly pat dry to remove the big droplets but still keep a sheen of water on my face.
Put 4 drops of HA onto face: each cheek, forehead, and chin. Rub well into face, until you can feel the hyaluronic acid getting tacky.
Spray your face with a spray bottle filled with plain water. I bought one for $1 at the dollar store (If you're like me you probably want to test this IMMEDIATELY RIGHT NOW so in a pinch you could just get water on your fingertips and lightly click your fingertips together over your face while looking up to rain water down onto your face. I do think the secret to this is to not use too much water, let the HA draw the water into your skin, don't flood it. The spray bottle feels nicer tho)
You can either continue to rub the water in, and spray more if still tacky. Repeat until face is no longer tacky (means all the HA has been absorbed). I probably do it 2-5 times, depending on the environment I'm sitting in. When it was cooler I only had to add water one more time, but now that its hot the water evaporates faster off my face so I need more applications of water to fully saturate the HA in my skin.
I have been waking up with GLASS skin. I'm not exaggerating. No pics because I'm weird about privacy 😂 The best thing about this is I have ZERO irritation. I have pale skin that is very sensitive, I basically always have some degree of redness due to a myriad of environmental factors I can't always control. I've never seen my face less red! Its soft and smooth, and I have completely dropped moisturizers from my routine.
Why I think it works
Hyaluronic acid is a powerful humectant, which means it draws water from its surroundings. It can hold 1000x its weight in moisture! But that means it needs moisture to reach its full potential. I used to use it as an isolated step in my skin care, but discontinued it due to not really seeing much results. That was back before I realized it needed water.
I tested this method by switching water out for witch hazel (one time) and moisturizer (one time) but found good ol plain water worked best.
I use the Hylamide Low Molecular HA, but I am confident The Ordinary's HA would work similarly.
So screw spending $80 on moisturizers. This works WAY better.
(I also posted this in /r/beauty, hope this is ok)